[olug] X tunneling

[Christopher Cashell]

On Fri, Nov 02, 2001 at 12:34:26AM +0800, Adam Lassek wrote:
> Has anybody here successfully tunelled X over the internet? I would like
> to know if it is possible to tunnel an X application through one or more
> computers, preferrably over ssh. I have done remote X applications
> before, but that was a direct connection between two computers on the
> same network. This time, I have a couple hops inbetween and I'm wondering
> if it would even be possible.

Yep, I do this regularly.

Basically, X was designed specifically to be network transparent,
whether "network" is a LAN or the Internet.  X doesn't care which it
is, it'll work just as easily (though, depending on connection speed,
the performance may not be quite as responsive over the net as on a
LAN).

Just do things exactly as you would if you were running an X app
remotely from another computer in the same room.  SSH into the remote
computer, set your DISPLAY environmental variable[1], and you should be
ready to go.  Just start up the program (you may want to background it
(&) in order to continue using your shell while the program runs) and
use it.  Some hosts disable X forwarding in general in the global
config file for ssh.  If that's the case, you'll prolly have to pass it
the '-X' switch to enable it when you log into the remote host.

[1] If you are running from within X when you make your connection, the
DISPLAY variable will usually be automatically set for you.

--
Christopher

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